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Journalism schools behind the times

Alana Taylor is in J-school at NYU and is not happy with the way she gets unprepared and mis-prepared by the old-timey professors for the journalism of the future: What is so fascinating about the move from print to digital is the freedom to be your own publisher, editor, marketer, and brand. But, surprisingly, NYU does not offer the kinds of classes I want. It continues to focus its core requirements around learning how to work your way up the traditional journalism ladder. Here is the thinking I find here: 1. Get an internship at a magazine or newspaper. "This is good for your resume…

Do Serbian scientists need a blog of their own?

Not that it costs anything to have one... Yet, the Konsortium of science libraries in Serbia is seriously contemplating shutting down their KOBSON blog, an invaluable tool in science communication in the region. Danica, who the regular readers of this blog are quite familiar with as she is the Number One Champion for Open Science and Web 2.0 science in Serbia, has put a lot of effort into building the online infrastructure for Serbian scientific communication, including the KOBSON blog and the KOBSON wiki, as well as teaching and preaching to the local scientific community about the…

Crisis Planning and Personal Interventions Class Starts TOMORROW

I still have spaces in this class, which is designed to help others sort out the complicated intersections of multiple crises.  The class is taught by both me and my husband, Eric Woods. This is an exciting class for us to be teaching, since it combines so many of our strengths and experiences.  Eric has a Ph.d in Astrophysics from Harvard and a BA in Physics from MIT, and has been teaching environmental physics for an number of years at SUNY Albany.  I'm a member of the board of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA), and a long time writer on energy, climate and environmental…

Future Great Experiments

Looking at the ScienceBlogs front page, I suspect that I may be well out of my league, especially when it comes to posting frequency. There's just no way I can post that many entries in one day, especially not a day like Thursday. In addition to my lab this morning (in which half the students were using a Michelson interferometer to measure laser wavelengths and the index of refraction of air, while the other half measured the speed of light-- it was like a "Greatest Experiment Nominee" re-enactment event. Only with lasers...), we had a visit from Dave DeMille of Yale, who I had invited a…

Intervention in NSA Lawsuit

I find this highly amusing. The folks at StopTheACLU think that they're actually going to be able to intervene in the ACLU's lawsuit against the NSA. Intervention is a term of art in the law. It means that you actually get added as a party to the proceedings. An attorney named Debbie Schlussel, who appears to be more of a spokesmodel than a scholar (her bio notes proudly that her online fan club is the second largest, behind only Ann Coulter), is apparently going to file motions to intervene on behalf of citizens who disagree with the ACLU and our pals at StopTheACLU jumped at the chance to…

February Pieces Of My Mind #1

Veneer inlay, Ewald Dahlskog, Stockholm's China Theatre. Me and Cecilia von Heijne have just submitted our paper on the coins from Skällvik Castle to a numismatic journal. Yay! Current Swedish Archaeology has just published my enthusiastic review of Cecilia Ljung's doctoral thesis on 11th century burial monuments. Well done, Doctor! Danish is such a badass language. It's got words like skaktavlkvadre -- note the VLKV sequence there -- and then you just pronounce everything like you're extremely drunk. I demand that everyone in Sweden pronounce "Skälboö" as if it were an English word:…

Media alert!

The makers of Expelled have just issued an "online media alert" in response to a critical review of their movie, as some readers have forwarded to me. It's hysterical. We already had our first security breech [sic] and are asking YOU now for your support to stand up for EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. Hosted by Ben Stein, EXPELLED contains a critical message at a critical time. As an underdog in Hollywood right now, we need your support. Recently Robert Moore, a film critic from The Orlando Sentinel pretending to be a minister, snuck into a private screening, did not sign a Non-Disclosure…

Hmmm...I found the moral philosophy of chimps more convincing

My colleague in the philosophy department here at UMM, Tamler Sommers, has a couple of interesting interviews online, one with Frans de Waal and another with Jonathan Haidt. de Waal is good — there's some cool stuff in there about altruism and politics. Haidt … well, again, I find myself with mixed feelings about his work. The "social intuition" model, where people make emotional judgments and then makes intellectual rationalizations after the fact, sounds reasonable to me. But then, he goes on to make these arguments about "four pillars of morality" — harm, fairness, purity, and duty — that…

Links for 2009-11-30

On false dichotomies : Thoughts from Kansas "To the degree that I object to "New Atheism" (an ill-defined entity to which I am not entirely unsympathetic), my objection is to this precise aimlessness. By embracing Radical Honesty and railing against evidence-based communication strategy, they seem to be coming out against clearly stated goals, yet they complain when people refuse to treat them as a serious political movement. Sorry folks, but political movements have clearly stated political goals, and take actions with an eye (however skewed it may be) toward making those goals real. If…

Best Physical Science Writing of 2008?

I didn't expect the post griping about the Best American Science Writing anthology to generate as much discussion as it did. Shows what I know. In comments, "bsci" made a good suggestion: Instead of complaining about this volume, I'd love it if you and your readers made a list of the best physics writing in the past year. I assure you that I would be one of many readers of the pieces on the list. That's a good suggestion, so let's put it out there: What were the best articles about physical sciences published last year? These could be in general magazines (The New Yorker, etc.), in science…

Breaking News: The Atta Phylogeny

Atta cephalotes carrying leaves, Ecuador Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution this morning has the first detailed molecular phylogeny of the leafcutting ant genus Atta.  MaurÃcio Bacci et al sequenced several mitochondrial genes and the nuclear gene EF-1a from 13 of the 15 described species-level taxa, using them to infer the evolutionary history of the genus. This is an important paper.  Atta is the classic leafcutter ant of the new world tropics and a model system for co-evolution among the ants, the fungi they cultivate, and a suite of microbes that either parasitize or protect the…

Moving in...

Greetings all, Not Exactly Rocket Science has now officially transformed and rolled out into the ScienceBlogs network. So to readers who have tracked me here, new Not-Exactly-Rocket-Science virgins, my new SciBlings, and people who have mistakenly stumbled here during their search for porn - hello! The blog is about explaining new research in a way that anyone can understand, regardless of their scientific background. I generally post about 3 times a week and more if time permits. Also, I'm giving a talk on science blogging this Thursday at London's Apple Store on Regent Street, alongside…

Der-der-der-DERR-der Der-der-der-DERR-de-DER-de-de-DERR-BOOM BOOM

For the last day, ScienceBlogs has been teasing some big news on Twitter. Perhaps we were all Belle de Jour in disguise? Maybe we would rip off our masks to reveal the mainstream media lurking underneath? Maybe we would even, gasp, shock, start blogging about science? No, it's none of these. The cat, now let loose from its bag/box in a flurry of collapsing probabilities, is that we're joining up with National Geographic for a big, sciencey love-in. There'll be a fair bit of cross-promotion on both sites, and we suddenly get access to a massive archive of pics and videos. And to clarify, Not…

Sunday brain-nuggets

To play my part as a good denizen of the blogosphere, I'm going to start providing a weekly selection of links to great posts from other blogs. These will either run every Sunday or every whenever-I-get-the-time... Without further ado: Brian Switek at Laelaps discusses living mammoth legends. SciCurious talks about ultrasonic frogs over at Neurotopia. Christie Wilcox at Observations of a Nerd covers research that suggests the largest pterosaurs may not have been able to fly. If it looks like a peer-reviewed journal and it sounds like a peer-reviewed journal, then it's a... massive ad for…

CIFAR quantum postdoc

Postdoc with some awesome Canadian quantum researchers: Quantum Information Processing Program JUNIOR (POSTDOCTORAL) FELLOWSHIPS The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) is a private not-for-profit research institute. It is a catalyst for discovery, incubating ideas that revolutionize the international research community. CIFAR identifies emerging fundamental research questions concerning society, technology and the very nature of humanity and the universe, and creates interdisciplinary networks of leading scholars from around the world to explore them in a way that is…

STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION IN THE STEM CELL DEBATE

This week all eyes will be on Capitol Hill as Nancy Pelosi and the newly elected House majority push for stem cell legislation that would override President George W. Bush's tight limits on research funding. Supporters will need to achieve a super majority in both houses in order to stave off a Bush veto. The Center for American Progress estimates that backers of the bill might be as many as 40 votes shy of a 2/3 majority in the House, but perhaps only one vote shy in the Senate. Both sides in the debate are geared up for a major political communication battle, and in a new "Science and…

National Geographic Gets Complex

Flowers, flagella, feathers. Life is rife with complex features--structures and systems made up of many interacting parts. National Geographic magazine asked me to take a tour of complexity in life and report on the latest research on how it evolved. What struck me over and over again was how scientists studying everything from bacteria to humans are drawn back to the same concepts--making new copies of old parts, for example, or borrowing parts of one complex trait to evolve a new one. And in each case, complexity opens up the way to diversity, because something many parts can be rearranged…

Examples of important persons dissing other important persons

Last semester I was fortunate enough to be involved with a UBC project (called Terry) that looks at global issues from a multidisciplinary angle. One of the things in my charge was arranging a kind of high profile speaker series, with an emphasis on bringing out individuals who are not only doing great things, but are also excellent engaging orators. This was wonderful in that I got to hang out with some pretty amazing folks. Anyway, the talks are all available online, a good portal for them being here, but I thought as bait, I'd present a few interesting, funny, at times poignant, and…

Cornell Road Report

In essence, it went like this: Getting to and from Ithaca was a !!%$^# nightmare. But once I got there, the talk went extremely well. I won't bother you with all the details about how my flight to Ithaca from LaGuardia, and my back-up flight to Syracuse, were both canceled. About how I then decided to rent a car and drive the 234 miles between New York City and the Cornell Campus. About how I met a vicious snow storm/flurry along I-81 N somewhere in the Poconos between Scranton and Binghamton that forced me off the road--I couldn't see two inches in front of me. About how I then found a…

Moving Day

Friends, readers, and new Sciblings: bioephemera has moved to a new home here at Scienceblogs! I'm happy to be here with so many bloggers I respect. And it gives me warm fuzzies to know they invited me to join them because. . . well. . . probably because they didn't have any blogs starting with b. If you're a regular reader from the old bioephemera, you'll notice some superficial changes. There's a new banner, and as part of my assimilation into the Sb collective, I must comply with this IKEA-esque, milquetoast color scheme. Sigh. But let's be honest; it is easier to read black text on a…

Brains under glass

light table with brain specimen slices National Museum of Health and Medicine Neuroanatomical collection A few months ago I took a tour of the National Museum of Health and Medicine's neuroanatomical research collection. It's a remarkable hoard of preserved and sectioned human brains, most sandwiched between plates of glass. Some of the specimens are quite old (the NMHM has specimens dating back to the Civil War). I took a few photos to show you what the facility is like. storage cabinets for NMHM's neuroanatomical collection The cabinets above house trays of glass slides containing serial…

Fear the omniscience of Orac, evildoers!

Orac knows all. Orac sees all. Orac discovers all. Anti-vaccine loons, know this and tremble, as Teresa Conrick over at J.B. Handley's--excuse me, Jenny McCarthy's--home for happy anti-vaccine propagandists has: While googling to find the Tribune article, I instead found Orac's site. Who is Orac? Well, suffice to say that he has some mysterious desire to want autism to be only a genetic disorder. He gets upset if you discuss vaccines or the environment as causative factors. The usual suspects of the neurodiverse world and the assorted anonymous Wackosphere characters were hanging out at…

Simon Caldwell is a liar

I don't think I've ever seen a more dishonest piece of reporting than this whoppper from Simon Caldwell at the Daily Mail: Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology. The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. Needless to say, this story was linked by Drudge and all the other denialists…

Leakegate: Yes, Leake was responsible for that bogus story about the carbon footprint of Google

Oh look! Another Jonathan Leake story Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research. While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7g of CO2 Boiling a kettle generates about 15g. "Google operates huge data centres around the world that consume a great deal of power," said Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist whose research on the environmental impact of computing is due out soon. "A Google…

Kids' Choice: Gym, Art or Science Class?

Photo source. Teaching kids science has always been a challenge, but why? Isn't a child's nature to explore and discover new things everyday? Every child has this capacity and somewhere along the way many of them lose the spark, the joy of discovery. A survey by the recently launched laboratory facility for children, the L'Oréal Young Scientist Centre at the Royal Institution in the UK gave some good news and some bad news. The goal of this new facility is to "provide children aged seven to 18 and their teachers with an interactive, experimental space in which to explore science. " First…

Travel

Since I've been traveling in a foreign country for the last week - I was sipping sugary tea all over Turkey - I thought this article, published last year in McSweeney's Panorama newspaper, was slightly relevant. If nothing else, it's my personal attempt to justify both the annoying burdens of travel (especially foreign travel) and the self-indulgence of an extended vacation. I'm linking to the version of the article that was reprinted in the Observer, since that's online: It's 4.15 in the morning and my alarm clock has just stolen away a lovely dream. My eyes are open but my pupils are still…

Some love for the philosophers

No, not for me (although some comments elsewhere in the ScienceBlogs galaxy have been rather more anti-philosophy than pro); for John Perry and Ken Taylor, the guys who do Philosophy Talk on public radio (and on streaming audio on your computer). They've been doing the show for more than two years now. However, the seed money that got them started is dwindling. Here's their bleg: When we started, many people in radio took our ideas with a very large grain of salt. "Philosophy on the Radio?" they asked incredulously. "Two academics as co-hosts? A stream of professional thinkers,…

Birds in the News 180 -- Back in the USA Edition

tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter A once-in-a-lifetime photograph of a Common (Eurasian) Kingfisher, Alcedo atthis. Image: orphaned [larger view]. Birds in Science For centuries, scientists have puzzled over why the toucan's bill is so remarkably large -- but now one team thinks it might have an answer. The researchers say that the toucan uses its enormous beak to stay cool. They used infrared cameras to show the bird dumping heat from its body into its bill, helping it to regulate its body temperature. The toucan has the largest bill of any bird,…

Next up on the Trump crazy train: A man who thinks that a "Yelp for drugs" will do a better job than the FDA

One of the most important, if not the most important, officials in the federal government responsible for applying science-based medicine to the regulation of medicine is the FDA Commissioner. As you might imagine, particularly after his having met with antivaccinationists like Andrew Wakefield and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., I am concerned, and I think I have good reason to be, about Donald Trump's plans for the FDA. After all, consider the people who have been under consideration for the post thus far (that we know of). First, there was Jim O'Neill, a flunky of Silicon Valley venture capitalist…

Collaborating on a data analysis project: students do the math with the Google Docs spreadsheet program

For many years, I had my biotech students do projects where each group of students would analyze their own data, in addition to all of the data gathered by the class. I would draw a table on the white board and each group would enter their data. At the end of the class, all the groups would copy all the results into their notebooks, then analyze them in Microsoft Excel. This worked pretty well, but it wasn't perfect. There were always cases where one group would be really slow, or someone had to leave early, or I needed to use the board and couldn't. And, this method certainly wouldn't…

You are all invited to ScienceOnline2010!

It is official - ScienceOnline2010, the fourth annual conference on science and the Web, will be held on January 15-17th, 2010 in the Research Triangle Park area (the exact location to be announced). Please join us for this three-day event to explore science on the Web. Our goal is to bring together scientists, physicians, patients, educators, students, publishers, editors, bloggers, journalists, writers, web developers, programmers and others to discuss, demonstrate and debate online strategies and tools for doing science, publishing science, teaching science, and promoting the public…

The Humane Society University Now Offers 4-year Degrees

I was surprised to learn that the fringe animal rights activist group, the Humane Society of the United States, has formed the Humane Society University which was recently granted a license to grant bachelor's degrees in three areas; animal studies, animal policy and advocacy, or humane leadership. They also are licensed to grant certificates for graduate study in those same areas. Required courses are offered online or at their Washington DC site starting autumn term in 2009. All students, who must have attained junior status elsewhere, are required to take two courses: Animal Protection…

Shout-out to Cruze, Lonnie, and Scholar 3000 at The REC Radio Show on G-Town Radio

I just want to say thank you to Len Webb aka 'Cruze' and his posse for having me on their weekly, two-hour online radio show, The REC, this past Wednesday night at G-Town Radio in Philadelphia. It was nice to open my e-mailbox Wednesday morning with his note. I've read your blog on the case of Henrietta Lacks and the episode of Law and Order. The episode inspired us to spend some time tonight June 9th on the program discussing the issue. I planned to reference your blog and your thoughts on the show but I was hoping you might be available to talk to via phone and share your thoughts live on…

Is vaccinating poultry for bird flu obscuring cases?

Several countries have elected to vaccinate poultry as a bird flu control measure. Vietnam and China both have such programs. The Vietnamese program is credited with their good record on bird flu this year. But poultry vaccination has some down sides: The potential impact on human health of poorly implemented bird inoculations and experimental poultry vaccines needs to be carefully considered, according to a report prepared by the influenza team at the European Centre for Disease Surveillance and Control in Stockholm. A drop in the number of human cases in countries where fowl are vaccinated…

Friday No Fun: Pseudonymous blogging no longer allowed at ScienceBlogs?

According to DrugMonkey's recent post, ScienceBlogs' new overlords The National Geogrpaphic Society will no longer allow pseudonymous to continue blogging here. I have just been informed that ScienceBlogs will no longer be hosting anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers. In case you are interested, despite extensive communication from many of us as to why we blog under pseudonyms, I have not been given any rationale or reason for this move. Particularly, no rationale or reason that responds to the many valid points raised by the pseudonymous folks. This is, as they say, not unexpected. It is…

My talk: Evidence vs. Ideology: The Canadian Conservative Government's War on Science

This past Tuesday I gave a talk as part of the York University Department of Science & Technology Studies' STS Seminar Series. Not surprisingly, my talk was centred on the work I've done as a chronicler of Canadian science policy issues. The title and abstract of my talk are: Evidence vs. Ideology: The Canadian Conservative Government's War on Science Canada has entered an era of decision-based evidence-making, where scientific and other evidence takes a back seat to an ideology of political partisanship in the service of economic development and “prosperity.” Where once we could hope…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Homing Pigeons Get Their Bearings From Their Beaks: It has long been recognized that birds possess the ability to use the Earth's magnetic field for their navigation, although just how this is done has not yet been clarified. However, the discovery of iron-containing structures in the beaks of homing pigeons in a new study1 by Gerta Fleissner and her colleagues at the University of Frankfurt offers a promising insight into this complex topic. The article will be published online mid-March in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften. Social Life Of Honeybees Coordinated By A Single Gene:…

ASM anyone?

Back from Mongolia (photos here for anyone interested), but heading off across the country this weekend for this year's American Society for Microbiology general meeting in Boston, then down to Connecticut for some reunion-ating. I just wanted to draw your attention (especially those of you planning to head to ASM, or already in the Boston area) to these events: The Science Social Media Breakfast Tuesday, June 3, 2008 8:00 a.m. ET - 10:00 a.m. ET Channel Café, 300 Summer Street, Boston, MA Join Elio Schaechter of Small Things Considered and Chris Condayan from the MicrobeWorld Radio and…

Triangle Tweetup Tonight

There is a Triangle Tweetup tonight and I'll be there, along with about 250 people from the Triangle, as well as from Greensboro and Greenville. You can follow the proceedings on Twitter, of course - @triangletweetup. You will also be able to watch it live! Looking at the list of attendees, I see several names that are familiar, including my SciBling Abel PharmBoy who has blogged about the event in much greater detail. Then, there will of course be people like Ginny Skalsky, Wayne Sutton, Lenore Ramm and the amazing Rachel of @DPAC. I am assuming that Bob Etheridge on the list is really the…

My picks from ScienceDaily

Novel Kind Of Learning Gene Discovered: Scientists at the Freie Universität Berlin have come one step closer to unraveling the molecular basis of learning. A team led by neurobiologist Björn Brembs has discovered the first gene for operant conditioning in the fruit fly Drosophila. Family Type Has Less-than-expected Impact On Parental Involvement, Study Finds: Children in step-families and in other non-traditional families get just as much quality time with their parents as those in traditional families, with only a few exceptions, according to research to be presented at the annual meeting…

Science Debate 2008 - my Question #3: Global Warming

To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to: - correct my factual errors - call me on my BS - tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask - if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so. Here is the third one, so…

Science Debate 2008 - my Question #1: Scientific Advice to the President

To keep the conversation about the Science Debate 2008 going, I decided to post, one per day, my ideas for potential questions to be asked at such a debate. The questions are far too long, though, consisting more of my musings than real questions that can be asked on TV (or radio or online, wherever this may end up happening). I want you to: - correct my factual errors - call me on my BS - tell me why the particular question is counterproductive or just a bad idea to ask - if you think the question is good, help me reduce the question from ~500 to ~20 words or so. Here is the first one, so…

One Simple Way to Save Our Planet ..

tags: conservation, environment, plastics, oil, petroleum products ... Stop using plastics -- especially those flimsy plastic grocery bags -- unless you plan to reuse reuse reuse them. People ask me if I could do only one thing to preserve the planet, what would it be? I tell them that the best, and easiest way to help save this planet would be to cut down on one's use of plastics, beginning with those flimsy plastic bags that are given out by supermarkets. If people would only make or purchase several strong canvas bags and reuse them for carrying groceries, they would have taken a big step…

Norse Saga About The Buddha

I found something pretty wild in an essay by J.L. Borges this morning. There's a 13th century Norse saga about the Buddha. And the story has other fine twists as well. This all revolves around a legendary tale of the Buddha's early life. In the 6th century BC a son was born to a petty king in what is now Nepal. He was named Siddharta, and it was prophesied shortly after the boy's birth that he would become either a great king or a great holy man. His father then kept him carefully protected from contact with religion and human suffering, apparently to keep the boy away from the holy-man…

January Pieces Of My Mind #2

One reason that it's so hard to talk to believers about alternative medicine: the sharing of alt-med advice is largely a social, friendship-reinforcing activity. It's not just irrelevant to believers, but quite rude, to question the medical efficacy of someone's advice. This is not the case when you're talking about tax forms or sewing machines. Amazes me to think how varied and nutritious food we have in rich countries. All year round I can pretty much afford to eat whatever I want. And I'm not anywhere near being rich. I'm happy to do stuff for people. Just don't expect me to remember if…

Early Neolithic Amber Hoard CT Scanned

The Skalk article I mentioned the other day (with the rubber goat) tells the story of an unusual find made in northernmost Jutland in the summer of 2005. Peter Jensen was stripping some land of topsoil for gravel extraction when, from the vantage point of his machine, he spotted something interesting on the ground. Jensen happens to have much experience of machine operation at archaeological digs. It turned out that he had managed to identify a pit in the subsoil filled with thousands of amber beads: an Early Neolithic votive deposit datable around 3500 cal BC. Most votive amber deposits…

Its a small world after all!

I know you all read PZs blag, but I really need to take a moment to point out this bit of irony. Casey Luskin I mean, 'The Discovery Institute' *WINK!*, just filed a false DMCA claim against a YouTube user for criticizing Luskins appearance on some random FOX News show. Now, Im fairly certain that it was Casey, not 'The Discovery Institute' that filed the false claim. The DI has a pretty fast and loose interpretation of copyright laws-- I really cant imagine they would have a problem with 'fair use' of their work after they stole 'fairly used' XVIVOs cellular animations in presentations,…

Phylogeny of Linepithema

Argentine ants tending scale insects Three years after finishing my Ph.D., I have finally published the last bit of work from my dissertation.  It's a multi-locus molecular phylogeny of the ant genus Linepithema, a group of mostly obscure Neotropical ants that would be overlooked if they didn't happen to contain the infamous Argentine Ant.  In less jargony language, what I've done is reconstruct the evolution of an ant genus using genetic data.  Here's the citation: Wild, A. L. 2008. Evolution of the Neotropical Ant Genus Linepithema. Systematic Entomology, online early, doi: 10.1111/j.…

Dr Charles is back in The Examining Room

Great news hit my e-mail box overnight: one of the premier literary physician-bloggers of my childhood days in the blogosphere has returned. Hi all, I missed you. I missed blogging. Just wanted to let you know that I'm returning to writing at http://theexaminingroom.com I hope you'll stop by, and I look forward to catching up with you all! Dr. Charles back from 2007 retirement This is VERY good news for all of us, especially if you never had the pleasure of reading The Good Doctor before. I cannot write with his clarity, of course. But I can say that Dr. Charles has a tremendous gift for…

Troubling drop in whale population

There's a reason the Japanese, Norwegian and Icelandic whaling fleets mostly take the smallest of the great whales ;;;;; whalers had taken so many of the bigger species that only the minke could tolerate any kind of hunt. There are supposed to be hundred of thousands of them out there, just waiting to be exploited by responsible, sustainable whaling operations. But wait... This past weekend comes news from Iceland of a dramatic drop in minke whale number in the country's waters. According to a whale count from 2001 compiled by aircraft, there were 43,600 minkes in Icelandic waters, but last…